The big ONE recap...

I don't know if it was due to great organization, a few years of experience or just some freak accident but this birthday party went together without even the slightest of a snag. So not our usual party experience. Let's see, the year of the big cake mishap, the days spent on the swing set construction...okay, I won't dull this post with all that information.

After last year I was positive that I had learned my lesson and this time I was not going to spend the whole birthday party eve getting the cake together. The big kicker is that I actually had it done by 10:00 p.m. What!?! Last year I was still filling in the icing at 5:00 a.m.!


Much to my surprise the cake turned out exactly the way I had pictured it in my head. The only big "uh oh" I encountered was forgetting to put one batch of the candy stars up. Thirty minutes of melted candy madness destroyed by two dogs in about thirty seconds. Lesson learned, always push in the chairs!

The day finally arrived and unlike the years before we weren't rushing around trying to stuff a few last minute messes in unknown and hidden places. We were good to go.

We waited...

and waited...

and waited...

and waited. Where in the world was everyone? It was almost like everyone called each other and said, "Hey, let's all be 30 minutes late just for fun!" I was starting to worry that I had written the wrong date or time. Drew and Jackson got pretty impatient too.


Well I don't technically know if Jackson was as impatient as Drew was or if he just liked banging his hands on the door. I'm going to go with the last one.

Finally everyone arrived and before the cake and decorations were destroyed I had to get a picture of the birthday boy with his favorite birthday aunt.


The star decorations were a little too distracting and it was near impossible to get Jackson to even consider breaking out his usual big, happy, I-love-the-camera, smile.


We started off with opening presents but Jackson the fearless adventurer was only interested in climbing everything.

When it came to the cake destruction part we did have a minor foot in the cake problem when it was time to blow out the candle. I'm anxious to see the pictures of that hilarious moment.


Jackson didn't waste much time when we put the whole top of the cake down in front of him. He made a few funny faces with the first few tastes but after that he was shoveling it in.


He even flashed us a cake and frosting covered "1"!


And then it was time for the "after bath". You know it's a good party when it ends in a bath!